Game Description:Super Street Fighter IV features the full roster of 25 characters from Street Fighter IV such as Ryu, Ken, Crimson Viper, Abel, El Fuerte and Rufus, while adding about eight characters new to the world of Street Fighter IV. The impressive new roster includes classic combatants from previous Street Fighter games like T. Hawk as well as all-new characters such as the mysterious and deadly female fighter, Juri.
Super Street Fighter IV adds new Ultra Combos and advancements to the state of the art online matchmaking and online gameplay introduced in Street Fighter IV with numerous additional features. Super Street Fighter IV takes many of the groundbreaking features introduced in Street Fighter IV and refines everything to deliver the ultimate vision of Street Fighter to fans the world over.

Super Street Fighter IV Review

It wouldn't be Street Fighter if Capcom wasn't tweaking and rebalancing the base game, and Super Street Fighter IV is no exception. It implements ten new fighters, adjusts discrepancies between existing characters, and delivers highly improved online play. It's likely the best bang for fighting game fans' buck they'll get all year.

The Pros

Improved roster balance

Enhanced online modes allow group play

New fighters offer very different playstyles

The Cons

Trial Mode still needs a "demo move" feature

Hakan is a very odd addition to the roster

Well, we all knew this was coming. It’s not a true entry in the Street Fighter series if it doesn’t have at least two upgraded iterations with the same number attached, and now we have Super Street Fighter IVto carry on Capcom’s fighting game tradition. Thankfully, this is much more of a Third Strike-level improvement than a Hyper Fighting one, and offers some substantial improvements on many fronts.

The Talented Ten

The biggest addition is, of course, the roster expansion. Ten "new" fighters join the cast, including two all-new characters. Rounding out the original Super Street Fighter II Turbo cast are Dee Jay and T. Hawk. Dee Jay is one of the more effective charge characters in the game, and T. Hawk is an absolute beast of a grappler with tremendous range to his command throws. Street Fighter Alphadonates Adon, Cody and Guy, with Cody as the standout and possibly the strongest overall of the ten newcomers. Fan favorites Dudley, Ibuki and Makoto have made the transition from Street Fighter III: Third Strike admirably, with Makoto in particular being an impressive fit due to the character’s previous reliance on Third Strike’s parry system.

Super Street Fighter IV official debutants are Juri, a lithe Korean fighter with a spider themed look and an evil gleam in her eye, and Hakan, a big red Turkish wrestler with a full body lubrication fetish. Juri has a fascinating Tae Kwon Do-inspired play style almost reminiscent of a King of Fighterscharacter. Hakan is a bit tougher to figure out. He’s a grappler with a oil-up buff that lets him slide around, giving him deceptively long range. However, his appearance is so strange that he doesn’t fit well with the rest of the cast. Street Fighter has certainly dabbled in the weird before, but the Street Fighter IV roster is grounded enough that Hakan feels oddly out of place. Is that his hair or some kind of headgear? And if it’s headgear, how is it attached to his mustache? These questions remain tragically unanswered.

Each character has a brand new story to play through, complete with new cutscenes, voice acting, and rival matches. The openings are just static "motion comic" style, but endings are fully animated. Some of the rival scenes are fan-requested dream match fodder, such as Ibuki’s meeting with Sakura and Dudley’s long-awaited confrontation with fellow boxer Balrog.

Balance feels more on target for the whole roster. Returning characters have gained one new Ultra Combo each and most of them have been tweaked a bit to counteract weaknesses or tone down advantages. Weaker characters like Guile and Vega now have a slightly more level playing field to work with, while beasts like Sagat are less dominant. You’re probably not going to see Ken winning any tournaments any time soon, but the rebalancing does seem to have resulted in a willingness for players to try characters other than the standard Shoto-Clone club.

Worldwide Warrior

There have been many requests for improvement in the online department since Street Fighter IV’s launch, and Super Street Fighter IV manages to deliver on nearly all counts. Connection speeds for potential opponents pop up instantly now, removing the constant guesswork and nasty surprise lag that occasionally popped up in the original. The matchmaking snafus of the original also appear to be gone. Ranking Match is very good about finding players of my own ranking to play against, as opposed to the broken original that repeatedly matches higher level players against players with no ranking points. It’s hard to tell if it’s all fully functional without thousands of players online, of course, but what I played on a retail copy pre-launch was definitely an improvement.

Endless Battle mode is something that really should have been in the original from the start. It lets a lobby of players play in succession in a "winner stays" round robin session. While waiting your turn you can watch the other players’ fights, and even save them as replays should you see something you deem historically significant. Replay saves are a big deal in Super, with a robust replay theater offering tons of ways to organize your replay viewing habits.

Team Battle mode offers a tournament-style challenge in which two teams of opponents fight a series of matches in an effort to rack up the most wins. This mode was not being played online at the time of this writing, so I was not able to evaluate it, but will follow up after launch.

...And Tribulations

The only real disappointment in an otherwise grand package is the lack of improvements to the Trial Mode. The advanced combos in Trial feature timing that can border on the cryptic, and it really needed a "demo move" option that would show you exactly what you’re trying to accomplish. Instead you’re stuck with a list of commands and no hints as to how or when to string the attacks together. You can always watch videos of how to do them on YouTube, of course, but it would be nice if the game itself offered more of a helping hand.

In conclusion, Super Street Fighter IV is an excellent upgrade to what was already a stellar fighting game. The amount of new characters, fighter rebalancing, and online improvements nullify the assertion that Capcom is cynically cashing in on fans. After the dozens of hours I’ve invested in the game, there’s just too much improvement here for that argument to hold water. At the lower-than-average price of $40, it’s a fine buy for fans of the vanilla Street Fighter IV looking for some new content or new players wondering what all the fuss is about.

do you guys realize that there are not that many fans of fighting games alot of people are confused on why they are good shooters are the new thing so they just say most fighting games suck I remember when me and my friends would all visit my house and played a fighting game it was so much fun.

I signed up just to add my two cents. I owned Street Fighter arcade when it was a full arcade game. I love Street Fighter. That was 15 years ago. There is so much fluff and no meat added to the base game. I tried the edition released less than a year ago. It was horrible. Super Ultra moves are fluff. Characters have no backstory more than they did on a 16 bit processor. Comeon'!The online play was so horrific in its bad matchmaking, connectivity issues, lag, and just overall implementation of online was sad with load times that make me cry. To have them charge ANYTHING to re-release this game once again is pathetic. If they made online playable, its called a patch, not a full feature on disc. I wouldn't pay a penny for this garbage. 5/5 is such a terrible injustice to other developers.

i wish i would have been good at the street fighter 4 they came out with after the long time without any newones but i couldnt do any of the specials they never shown how to do them thats the only reason i wouldnt get this one and why i sold my old number 4 i would want to go back to the old console and play the original you can never beat the orginials

Picked it up Tuesday, beat Arcade Mode on Hardest difficuly with Guile on Wednesday. If you can go through Arcade Mode with out continuing even once, show us the video. Seth is still cheesy as the boss. Although my skills are severely lacking in the dusting all opposition category. I'm sure there are ways to fight against crazier opponents like Dudley in Arcade Mode. I kinda was hoping to sse tatooed strongman and Guile clone, Alex, or even Sean or Hugo would also get the next gen treatment, but, no dice. Both CPU and Human opponents will school you with multiple EX attacks and focus cancels during the heat of battle. The new Utlra Combos are pretty good impressive but some are downright weird. I haven't finshed a single fighter's Trial as of late. So, I'm glad especially over the fact that now you can just skip to the next lesson with no hangups. I appreciate the rebalancing of the characters this time around. Still charge characters like M. Bison and Vega have a devil of time chaining into more than 6 hit combos. I'll definitely agree that Trial mode needs a demo option (how about it Capcom?), I also didn't play Team Battle yet. Aside from the quicker framerate and the GUI is more detailed with better contrast.(I can finally view my character's command list without squinting my eyes) And the Bonus Stages are back but, there not as challenging this time around. Achievements for the Xbox 360 are much better than the first one's offerings. Yes the one, with performing 365 flashy finishes on an oppenent is back-haven't completed the "do 100 super moves" achievement yet. Now you can unlock new costume colors and personal actions just by going through Arcade Mode. Which is a heck of lot better tnan getting pounded by the hellish Cpu in Time Attack a la regular SFIV. I tried the Replay modes online but at the time there weren't too many spectators watching. Problably are a ton watching rreplays now. it's a match you've single handedly wanted to view-chances are if you're not the hosting party it will end abruptly without your approval. I'll admit I was skeptical at first, happy to say that paying $40 and not $60 for being a much better listener to fans reactions and expectations from the first. You won't be dissapointed. kudos to Capcom!

THIS GAME WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.....PERIOD!!! Stellar improvements from the original and the additional cast are excellent, especially juri, makoto, ibuki, dudley, and cody. I will b playing this for a long time to come. If you haven't yet picked this up, do so right now cuz it will blow your mind! The only thing I can't wait to do is get online and start pwning the competition. Hurry up Tournament Mode and get here already. On another note, Sagat and Zangief are still beasts and so is T.Hawk now. These have got to be the strongest characters in the game...IMO. Practice your throw reversals and cancels well against them (Zangief and T.Hawk).....they like to grab an awful lot. It is now time to take that road to SUPREME GREATNESS in the Street Fighter World......challengers come one come all. It is time to introduce the Sandman and tuck you in nighty night.